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Thursday, November 22, 2012

I've never said I'm thankful for my health before, but on today's Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my health. I'm thankful to have such a healthy, strong body, and one that I honor by eating well and physically moving it. After shedding so much weight in the past two years, and putting a little of it back on, I realize that it's an ongoing continuum, and for many of us, a struggle of finding and staying at our ideal body size.

But I'm trying to listen to my body, and honor it. My body says it really loves being pushed to the limits with cardio work, even if the first ten or twenty minutes it wants to fight with me. My body is stronger with the training I'm doing with a personal trainer, and I'm finding I'm really strong. No, I'm really strong. And it aches less and moves faster in the world with strength training.

My body is responding. By migrating towards the things it loves: exercise, vegetables, calmness, and not so much focus on what it shouldn't have (carbs, sugars, cookies) I'm finding my body much prefers the carrot and will give a big middle finger to the stick approach.

With that said, we ran the Turkey Trot today. Do not let the fun name fool you. It's a 4 mile run — longer than a 5K which is 3.1 miles — and while it's downhill in the beginning, it's all uphill the way back. In fact, the uphill is an equivalent of 47 flights of stairs (thank you to my FitBit for telling me that!). Much of the uphill we walked, but in the end, we completed the race in 54 minutes, a minute better than our time last year.

Post run:

I'm so thankful for a body that allows me to do this. For strong legs and feet that can power me forward, and for all in my life that allows me to honor my body through healthy living. Even if it's hard sometimes, I'm coming to learn that the difficulty only lasts a little while, and that I'm strong enough to keep on pushing through it.